Global Defence Force, also known as Earth Defense Force 2 (THE地球防衛軍2 Chikyū Bōeigun 2?) in Japan, is a PlayStation 2 third-person shooter video game developed by Sandlot. The game was originally published as Chikyū Bōeigun 2 in Japan by D3 Publisher, as volume 81 of the Simple 2000 series of budget games. It was later released in Europe by Essential Games, the brand created by D3 Publisher to publish Simple 2000 series games in Europe. Players assume the role of a soldier and fight giant insects and robots amongst other enemies. A PlayStation Portable version of the game, titled Earth Defense Force 2 Portable was released on April 7, 2011 in Japan. The game is a third-person shooter featuring large play areas and waves of mecha and giant insects. Players control either a foot soldier (Storm-1) who uses conventional weaponry such as assault and sniper rifles, shotguns, and rocket-propelled grenades or a jetpack-equipped soldier (Pale Wing) who uses energy-based weaponry. Most of the game's missions are cleared by eliminating all enemies present, starting with giant ants on earlier stages and eventually progressing to giant lizard enemies. A number of vehicles such as a tank, helicopter and a hover-bike are available in some missions for players to board and attack enemies with. However, only the Storm-1 unit can use the vehicles. Split screen co-operative mode. The player on the left is controlling the PaleWing soldier. The player on the right, controlling the infantryman, is driving a tank. A total of 300 different weapons are available between the two characters, but players are limited to carrying two weapons during missions. Weapons are unlocked by picking up containers dropped by enemies. Every weapon picked up during play will add a random weapon of the character's to the selection, duplicate weapons are discarded. Armor chips and medical kits, also dropped by enemies, increase the character's maximum possible health and recover lost health respectively. There are a total of 71 missions spread over 7 environments to play through, the first mission taking place in London. Five difficulty levels are available for each mission. Half-medals are awarded for completing a mission on a set difficulty with either character. Completing the same stage with the other character results in a complete medal. Once a player has collected all the medals for every mission, "Impossible" mode is unlocked. Source: Wikipedia, "Global Defence Force", available under the CC-BY-SA License.